HAVING twice thwarted the government's bid to lower the age of homosexual consent to 16, the House of Lords now blocks its bid to lift the Section 28 ban on the promotion in schools of gay sex. Are they out-of-touch reactionaries?

Hardly. They are in tune with public opinion on this issue - and the government knows it.

For why else, after being exposed to the hostile reaction of parents and the the entire religious establishment, would the government rush out guidelines on sex education that would teach children that marriage and the family are the key building blocks of community and society?

The question now is whether ministers themselves have learned a lesson from this - that the people's priorities should be their guideline.

If they still do not know them after this, put simply they are that ordinary people are not anti-gay - indeed, they are anti-discrimination - but they are far from "pro" the promotion of sexual behaviour that goes beyond the family values guidelines the government suddenly sets.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.